


How To Fall In Love With Your Childhood Best Friend Turned Enemy Without Really Trying

by nervousjazzhands



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Ben is a hot teacher, M/M, Minor Character Death, caleb works at an aquarium, dw its not sad its just all calebs family is dead and thats referenced a lot, its a friends to enemies to friends with a lot of sexual tension to lovers au, its not a college au tho, modern day AU, simcoe is an asshole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervousjazzhands/pseuds/nervousjazzhands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how Ben and Caleb go from Benandcaleb to Ben vs Caleb to Ben in Caleb.</p><p>(im sorry that was gross they dont deserve dont let that turn you off it's a great fic theres lots of fighting and eventual kissing its lovely)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the introduction, or the one where everything goes horribly wrong

Caleb Brewster is _hot._

Which is new. 

Now, it’s not like Caleb has ever been unattractive by any means, but for as long as Ben has known him (which is a whopping twelve years!) Caleb has always just been cute. The sort of “I’d like to bring him to meet my grandmother” cute. The “his smile is like sunshine” sort of cute. The “drowned puppy” cute. Caleb being cute was always a constant in Ben’s life. 

He’s not sure what has made such a drastic impact on Caleb to change him from cute to _Hot._ Maybe everyone just looks sort of rumpled and gross in high school, although those weird camo crocs and board shorts probably didn’t do him any favors. 

Whatever the reason is (Ben thinks it has something to do with the pants that Caleb is wearing, holy _shit_ his _pants_ good lord), it doesn’t change the fact that Caleb is standing outside his door, and for the first time in twelve years he doesn’t want to punch him in the face. 

Now, if anyone heard this before The Fight (yes, the capital letters are necessary it was a big deal), they wouldn’t believe Ben. Caleb moved next to Ben when they were both six and they became best friends instantly. Eventually they became less two people and more one Benandcaleb conglomeration. If you invited one of them somewhere, you invited both of them. They did all the same sports and had all the same friends and probably shared more clothes than was socially acceptable. Nobody bothered them about it, because it was just Benandcaleb. 

And then something changed. Not overnight, but looking back there were several factors that changed Ben and Caleb from Benandcaleb, childhood best friends to Ben and Caleb, mortal enemies. 

The first of these factors was Nathan Hale. It totally wasn’t his fault, but he had all the same advanced classes as Ben, while the only class Caleb had with Ben was gym. (It’s not that Caleb was _dumb_ or anything, far from it. He just didn’t see why he would take a class that still won’t teach him anything important, but will give him three hours of homework. Ben was always telling him that he was “wasting his potential” but that’s just because he heard Mr. Washington say it once and took it as the word of God.) Nathan soon became Ben’s best friend, and that wouldn’t have been a problem (Caleb doesn’t get jealous easily, and he didn’t mind Nathan anyway. He helped him egg Mr. Augustus’s car and took the blame for it.), if not for factor two: Simcoe. 

Now, for anyone who was lucky enough to never cross paths with Simcoe, imagine a fedora. Now give him a rich and powerful father, an ego the size of Long Island, and a nasty grudge against Ben and Caleb. (The grudge is rumoured to have started when Ben and Caleb told Simcoe’s friend Ed that Simcoe had made a pass on Ed’s girlfriend, which made Ed ruin their presentation and flunk Simcoe out of APUSH.) Simcoe had been daydreaming about how to get back at Ben and Caleb for a while, as any good villain would, and decided sometime halfway through the summer of eighth grade that he’d need to separate them. Anyone who’d spent more than five minutes around Ben and Caleb knew that they practically fed off each other, keeping each other from carrying out the stupider of their plans, patching each other up, helping each other with homework, everything. Nobody could remember a time before Benandcaleb, and they would be hard pressed to think of a time that they’d done anything without including the other. 

Obviously, to take them down Simcoe would need to separate them. He was a fourteen year old boy who played a lot of video games. He knew how to deal with boss battles. 

So he made a plan. (He probably still has the crumpled piece of line paper he wrote it on, it wouldn’t be above him to sleep with it under his pillow). It was as follows:

Step One: distance B and C

Step Two: pull an amazing prank on B

Step Three: frame C

Step Four: watch them fall apart

(Simcoe always had a flair for the dramatics. He said it made him powerful, but most people just said it made him act like Sharpay from High School Musical). 

Of course his plan would have failed miserably if not for factor three. (Simcoe, much like any comically evil villain, was remarkably incompetent and the only reason he managed any of it was because he blackmailed Mr. Rogers, the shop teacher who was probably an ex-con.)

Factor three was Abraham Woodhull, and his infatuation Robert Townsend. At the time, Abe was the only person in his friend group with a cell phone, and therefore the self titled “communications liaison” of the friend group. (He watched a lot of Criminal Minds, okay.) 

However, because he spent most of his high school career busy pining over Rob, he didn’t think to tell Ben that Caleb was completely innocent and didn’t pull a prank on him. Caleb had already gotten a two week’s suspension because of it though, and by the time that he came back to school the damage was done. Ben had partnered with Nathan in gym, and refused to speak to Caleb outside of school. So eventually Caleb, like most teen boys faced with real emotions, decided to lash out and got in a fight with Ben. Which pretty much set in stone what would become a four year long rivalry, the casualties of which included (but were not limited to) a pair of exceedingly tight pants that Ben had to cut himself out of, several pints of glue poured into Caleb’s shoes (although it has been debated whether that’s actually a casualty because those shoes were _nasty_ ), and all of senior prom.

Ben doesn’t know any of that though, all he knows is that one day freshman year Caleb started to hate him and Ben started to hate him right back. The only thing that has kept Ben from punching Caleb (again) is his sudden hotness. Not that Ben is willing to forgive Caleb, far from it. He’s just shocked is all. 

Caleb doesn’t seem shocked by how Ben looks, but he hasn’t tried to stab Ben so this is probably the most pleasant interact they’ve had since freshman year. But if the murderous glint in his eyes says anything Caleb doesn’t want to be here any more than Ben wants him here. 

“Why are you here?” Ben eventually asks with more venom than is probably necessary. They haven't seen each other in ten years. Maybe things will be different. 

“I don’t want to be here, trust me,” Caleb shoots back, proving that no, nothing is different. 

“Why are you here then?” Ben says, easily falling back into his old rhythm of bickering with Caleb.

(Ben still hasn’t invited Caleb into his place, so they’re just standing outside his door where anyone could see them fighting. Normally Ben would be terrified that one of his elderly neighbors would come out and watch them fighting, but at this point he doesn’t really care anymore.)

“Look, I’m only here because my dad mentioned you in a letter he wrote you a while back and I thought you’d want to know. Whatever.”

Caleb’s face has started getting red by now, which is stupid. This whole thing is stupid, really. Caleb’s dad just could have sent Ben the letter or something, Caleb didn’t need to come here just to tell him. 

“So? Have your dad tell me himself, why did he send you?”

Caleb’s face instantly turns an angry red and Ben is confused about what he possibly could have said to piss Caleb off so much already. 

“He’s _dead,_ Ben.”

Oh _shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s/o to my buddy my pal deven for inspiring me to finish this today.
> 
> also i feel sorta bad for ending this on a cliffhanger bc im probably not gonna update for a little bit but whatever. itll make the next update that much sweeter, or something.
> 
>  
> 
> p.s. sorry to sharpay for comparing simcoe to you you dont deserve that sharpay is cool
> 
> p.p.s this is barely proofread so if u find an error or want to be my beta send me an ask (im @nervousjazzhands on tumblr) or leave a comment B)


	2. the one where quality plot devices inculde: abe's shitty dates and aquariums

Caleb leaves after that, not that Ben can blame him. Dead parents usually aren’t the best get-to-know-your-childhood-enemy topic. 

It’s so weird though, thinking that Caleb’s dad is gone. He was always so nice to Ben whenever he would go over to Caleb’s house, and he kept coming to Ben’s baseball games even after Ben and Caleb stopped being friends. Ben can’t believe that this is the first Ben’s heard of it. Caleb’s still friends with Abe and Anna and Mary and Rob and Abi and everyone. Why didn’t one of them tell him?

“Why didn’t you tell me that Caleb’s dad died?” Ben asked Abe, calling him on the phone just because he knows how much Abe hates phone calls. 

“Because the last time I mentioned him you punched a hole in my wall? I don’t know man,” Abe deadpanned. “How did you even find out?”

“Because he _showed up at my apartment_! Also, I fixed that hole for you and probably saved you like a hundred dollars don’t complain about that.” That wall was about to fall down anyway, really Ben did Abe a favor. 

“It was still traumatic! Also what was he doing at your- oh shit that’s probably why he was asking for your address.”

“You _gave him my address_?”

At least Abe sounded vaguely remorseful for giving out Ben’s address to his _sworn enemy_. 

“Sorry, I gotta go, a bird just flew into the apartment!”

“Aren’t you in a park?” Ben asked, but the line was already dead. 

~ ~ ~

For the record, Ben didn’t know that Caleb worked at an aquarium. He didn’t know that upon seeing Ben, Caleb would punch him in the face. He also didn’t know that his date decided to bail on him while he was patching himself up in the bathroom. 

Ben’s having a great day. 

Now Caleb’s waiting outside the bathroom, probably to kick Ben out of the aquarium or something. Which is ridiculous, _he’s_ not the one that punched someone. 

“Are you going to punch me again?” Ben says in a bored voice. Ben’s spent a lot of time getting in fights with Caleb, so he knows how dodge pretty well. 

“What? No, I’m here to apologize.”

Caleb looks even more nervous than he did when he first showed up at Ben’s place, and he keeps folding and unfolding an abandoned ticket stub in his hand. 

“Look, I’m not going to press charges or anything, so you can let me leave. You don’t need to apologize, it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve punched me or anything.” Ben tried to move around Caleb, but he’s remarkably hard to get around for someone so short. 

“I _want_ to apologize.” Caleb takes a deep breath, like it physically pained him to say that. “Look, I know we’ve had our disagreements-”

“Once you _threw an axe at my head_.”

“I know we’ve had our disagreements,” Caleb repeats, “but it was wrong of me to be mad at you for not knowing about my dad, since I didn’t tell you and I just assumes that Abe would tell you.”

“Never trust Abe to pass along any important information, ever. I thought you knew better.”

Caleb laughs at that, and Ben smiles. 

“I still hate you by the way,” Caleb says, just to clarify. “I’m just saying that that one specific time I punched you three minutes ago was a bad idea.”

“So the other nine thousand times were great ideas in your eyes?” Ben replies, but it doesn’t have his usual venom. Plus he’s actually _smiling_ , and its not even an evil smile that hides ulterior motives.

“Yep. I stand by all those.”

“Good. I still hate you too.”

“Glad we’re in agreement.”

“We should probably stop standing in the doorway of this bathroom.”

“Yeah.”

Caleb walks off, probably to get back to doing whatever aquarium people do, and Ben goes to his car to go home. He refuses to think about how that was the nicest conversation he’s had with Caleb in years, and how good it felt to hear Caleb laugh. Instead he thinks of the papers he should be grading and other safe, non-Caleb related topics.

~ ~ ~

Ben manages to completely put Caleb out of his mind for a few weeks, until he bumps into him. Literally. The coffee Ben was holding goes everywhere, and probably ruins both their shirts. He apologizes too, but later he’ll swear that it was only because he didn’t recognize Caleb at first.

“What are you doing-” Caleb begins to ask, only to be cut off by an overenthusiastic Abe bounding over. 

“Hey! You guys both came! Great! I have a table somewhere over here,” Abe says, grabbing both of them by the arm and dragging them away from the mess of spilled coffee on the floor. 

“Why is he here?” Ben asks as soon as they sit down. “Did you plan this?”

“...Maybe.”

Ben isn’t as pissed as he probably should be, but to be fair it’s sort of hard to stay mad at Abe for too long. He’s sort of like a puppy that’s not quite housebroken and keeps peeing in your shoes, but you’d never yell at it. 

Ben looks over at Caleb to try and see if anyone’s going to get punched today, but surprisingly Caleb is grinning. 

“Isn’t this how you got Rob to finally go on a date with you? You said you’d invited a bunch of people but you only invited him.”

Abe blushed at that, and Caleb looks immensely proud of himself. 

“Yeah, and then he just left, didn’t he? And you called me up to spend the whole night talking about him,” Ben adds. He usually makes a point not to agree with Caleb on anything, but the heavy silence is lifting and Abe’s an easy target. 

“What have I done,” Abe says, burying his head in his hands. “I brought you two here to _bond_ , not to spend the whole time making fun of me.”

“Two bird one stone, I’d say,” Caleb says with a laugh. “Plus, it’s not our fault that you’ve done a lot of stupid shit. We’re just… bringing it to light.”

Ben laughs at that, and they go back and forth for a few minutes. Abe looks secretly pleased, like this was all part of his plan. Ben can’t really be bothered to care about Abe’s latest scheme anyway, not with the way Caleb’s laugh sounds. Not that he _likes_ Caleb. Being mortal enemies doesn’t go away just fade away because someone’s sometimes fun to be around. Caleb’s just _interesting_ is all. He’s also annoying and childish, but mostly interesting. He still hates him though. Totally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look. buddy. pal. i have No Idea where i was going with this chapter and it is Bad so. sorry or whatever. the characterization was wrong and nothing flowed right. however! i really like the idea of caleb working in an aquarium so thats something right. leave a coment bellow so i can be validated if thats ur thing.


	3. the one where ben is stupid (aka all of them)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i wrote everything but the last 2 paragraphs forever ago and then i didnt post them bc i was busy having a crisis. deven inspired me to write tho so here it is. rushed as fuck and probably low quality, but its here.

After that Ben assumes that he’ll never see Caleb again. Maybe in a few years he’ll pass his grave and spit on it, but that’s it. After all, the only thing that will keep Abe from meddling in things is being made fun of, and the only thing that Ben likes more than making fun of Caleb is making fun of Abe. It would be in everyone’s best interest for Ben to never lay eyes on Caleb Brewster for as long as he lives. 

However, none of Ben’s friends seem to care about that, because soon he can’t go anywhere with anyone without spending time with Caleb. He’s sure most of them don’t mean it (other than Abe, Abe totally plans it), it’s just that Caleb just got back from travelling the world or saving the whales or whatever and he need a place to stay and they missed him or something. There are _probably_ reasons why Ben was greeted with a half-asleep Caleb Brewster when he went over to Rob’s, or Abi has decided to take Cicero to the aquarium every month. (“You don’t even like fish!” “There are more than just fish there! Plus, I like Caleb and he always gives Cicero a special tour. It’s very informative.”)

And it’s not like Ben’s _jealous_ or anything, but Caleb is one of those people who are so…. _loud_ about having travelled. All his shirts are from some rest stop in some remote place and all his stories are about he saved some rainforest from a dictator or was made king of Sweden for a day. And he never _says_ anything about the fact that Ben has never left New York and how that makes him inferior, but Ben can tell that he thinks it. 

So when Caleb says that they should get coffee together sometime and Ben says that he would rather eat a live snake, he doesn’t feel like he was overreacting. That doesn’t stop Caleb’s face from falling into a pronounced frown and Ben sort of feeling like an ass. It’s not like he _tries_ , he’ll later explain to Anna, it’s just he’s used to Caleb snapping back to every barbed word he throws at him, and he doesn’t know how to debarb. He’s lying on Anna’s couch after a long week of exams while Anna’s making something in the kitchen, puttering around slowly. It’s early afternoon, and the sunlight’s filtering through the curtains softly. 

“Has anyone ever told you why Caleb came back here?” Anna’s voice floats from the kitchen. 

“No,” Ben says. “I just assumed he ran out of money or something. Got sick of never staying in one place for more than a week.”

“He had to sell his dad’s place. He wasn’t making any money, so he couldn’t afford to keep it. The apple farm and everything, Ben.”

Anna has stopped moving around the kitchen, and she doesn’t sound like she’s blaming Ben for anything but he can’t feel it’s somehow his fault. 

It’s _gone_. 

Ben really shouldn’t care that much about an old apple farm, he hasn’t been back there in years anyway, but before he hadn’t really realized that it was really gone. He’d spent all his afternoons there until he turned fifteen and now it’s going to be turned into condos or something. 

He makes some excuse to Anna and goes back to his apartment and immediately calls Caleb up. (He’d gotten his number from Abe a while back, and hasn’t used it until now.)

“Want to get coffee sometime?” he asks breathlessly. Ben isn’t sure what he’s doing, but it’s the only thing his scrambled brain can focus on right now. 

“Ben?” Caleb sounds bleary, like he just woke up from a nap. “No. Why do _you_ want to?”

Ben pauses. “I’m not sure. I was an asshole to you though, and I don’t even really know why.”

“You sort of were. To be fair, I _did_ spent all of high school getting in fights with you. Which I still don’t know the reason for. We got in a fight in like, Freshman year and then we kept fighting, but why did we even get in a fight in the first place?”

“I don’t even _remember_!” Ben laughs, more out of relief than anything. He didn’t expect Caleb to continue talking to him, he thought he’d just get hung up on. 

“Maybe coffee will jog your memory. Are you free tomorrow?”

Tomorrow is Sunday and Ben finished grading those tests during his lunch break on Friday, so “yeah, sure. Is 11:30 good for you?”

“It’s great.”

~ ~ ~

It wasn’t great of course, at least not at first. It’s surprisingly hard to break the habit of taking every opportunity to insult Caleb, and Ben still wouldn’t call them _friends_. They’re just… acquaintances. Acquaintances who hang out a lot because they have a lot of mutual friends. That’s it. 

It’s not that Ben wouldn’t _like_ to be Caleb’s friend. Sure Caleb is still sort of annoying and brash and he takes too many risks, but he’s also loyal to a fault and really interesting and sweet. 

There’s just this undercurrent of weirdness between them, which Ben supposes is just residual from the twelve years that they were constantly at each other's throats. That’s what he hopes at least, because that way he can hope that it’ll go away eventually. 

It’s nice though. When the silences aren’t quite as awkward and Caleb’s smile lights up the room and Ben remembers how it was when they were little, Benandcaleb, two people blurred into one. 

It’s nice is all. 

~ ~ ~

People (mainly Rob, who only knew them as Ben vs Caleb and never Benandcaleb) will later question how weird it was that all it took was one phone call to basically get rid of their feud. 

“It’s really a testament to both of your pigheadedness,” Rob usually says. 

“Yeah, you could’ve talked it out three years later and spared my wall!” Abe adds from where he’s lying in Rob’s head. 

“I don’t think they were ever _really_ fighting anyway. You know what they say about love and hate…” Anna always says with a wink. 

She’s not wrong, really. Looking back, Ben spent more in detention with Caleb than he spent with any of his friends. That doesn’t keep Caleb from making a joke about how if he’d known making up with Ben would make everyone else gang up on him, he’d never had said yes to coffee. He’s smiling while he says it though, right at Ben like they’re the only ones in the room. 

It’s… nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully i update this sooner but my school starting up on the 18th so if i dont post anything for like 6 months u know what happened. 
> 
> also i really need a beta bc i Suck at spelling so if anyone wants to. hmu im @nervousjazzhands on tumblr


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